Vanessa, Canada’s first adult channel, begins broadcast on Oct 28

Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 19:24 by Business Editor

Vanessa, the first French-language paid adult entertainment channel in Canada, will go on air on October 28. The channel was licensed in 2007 by Sex-Shop Television, based in Montreal, as a national pay TV service.

The channel will only broadcast content in the liberal French-speaking city of Quebec initially, although an English version to be broadcasted across Canada will be introduced in 2011. Subscription for Vanessa, priced at $14.95, is set to begin in September.

The programme content on Vanessa will primarily consist of erotic-themed dramas, documentaries, reality shows and magazine shows. The channel’s softcore content will be broadcast in HD.

The Canada Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) which oversees and regulates content on all channels, has directed the porn channel to follow industry codes related to violence and portray both sexes as being equal.

The rules also say that the channel must obtain 20 percent of its content from local sources. This leaves 80 percent of the channel’s content to be sourced from California’s sex industry located in the San Fernando Valley.

The CRTC allowed the channel to start airing after overcoming earlier protests from religious groups that said that the 20 percent local source rule could give lead more youth into jobs in the adult industry.

Canada, which already has a Naked News Channel, also has adult content broadcast by cable services and satellite TV channels. The programme content for these broadcasts is obtained from US sources.